The U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a multipurpose facility with a full range of capabilities for testing the performance of chemical and biological material. Located 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, Dugway encompasses 840,000 acres of land free from encroachment. DPG supports all branches of the DOD and shares the surrounding restricted airspace with the AF's Utah Test and Training Range. A recently completed $300 million modernization program has made Dugway an efficient, state of the art technical facility.

Mission

DPG is the DOD's principal proving ground for chemical and biological defense material, protective items, and soldier compatibility with protective clothing/equipment. In addition to this primary mission, Dugway has been designated a Center of Excellence for military smoke/obscurant and illumination systems testing and performs artillery, mortar, mines, and a wide variety of special purpose equipment testing and evaluation. Another major responsibility is the Joint Chemical/Biological Contact Point and Test Project which was assigned directly by the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In connection with this task, DPG serves as the central source for information on chemical and biological material issues for all Commanders-in-Chief and Services.

Facilities / Resources

DPG has numerous instrumented test grids and a variety of artillery and mortar ranges, capabilities for characterizing smokes/obscurants and relevant systems, and a manned airfield with a 13,125-foot runway, supporting all types of aircraft and aviation activities. Specific facilities/resources are:

* Articulated robotic mannequin

* Aerosol test facility

* Automated data collection/processing

* Ballistic ranges

* Biological test facility

* Combined chemical test facility

* Containment chambers for chemical testing

* Cryofracture facility

* Electronics maintenance facility

* Electronic trajectory measurement

* Environmental testing

* Hazardous waste management facility

* Materiel test facility

* Meteorological measurement/modeling

* Optical maintenance facility

* Optical tracking capability

* Photographic laboratory

* Physical test facility

* Real-time x-ray facility

* Smoke/obscurant characterization

* Software development laboratory

* Telemetry capability

* Tropic test facility (Panama)

Areas of Expertise

* Chemical/biological containment

* Data acquisition software

* Laser/lidar technology

* Meteorological measurement/modeling

* Real-time chemical sensors

* Robotic applications

SYNOPSIS:

Although few people outside of Dugway, Utah, are aware of it,

the US Army has brought biological warfare back to a site it declared

unsafe a decade earlier.

Ten years ago, residents of western Utah breathed a healthy sigh of relief

when the Army discontinued testing biological warfare agents at its Dugway

Proving Ground. The reason given was that the Army's testing facility was

getting old, and its safety--its ability to prevent potentially deadly

diseases from escaping into the air outside the facility and thence to the

rest of the world--could no longer be guaranteed. Now the deadly bugs are

back.

Military scientists are testing a device called the Biological Integrated

Detection System (BIDS) at the renovated Dugway facility. BIDS is

described as a defensive weapon, designed to detect the presence of

biological agents in time to allow soldiers to put on protective clothing.

A Dugway representative said the tests, which include organisms such as

anthrax, botulism, and the plague, would initially be liquid, not aerosol,

tests. Aerosol tests are the most hazardous form of testing because they

involve spraying biologicl agents into the air inside a sealed chamber.

One tiny air leak could result in a catastrophic release of deadly

diseases. It wsas precisely this hazard that led to the closing of the

Dugway facility in 1983. The biowarfare lab has been renovated since then

and Army experts claim their elaborate safety precautions will prevent such

a leak.

Nonetheless, new safety concerns were raised in September 1993, when the

Dugway Proving Ground was cited for 22 violations of state hazardous-waste

regulations, ranging from inadequate record-keeping to improper dumping of

poisonous chemicals. Notices of violations and orders for compliance were

issued to the Army base by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

Critics also point out that it was the Army that denied for a year that it

was responsible for the 1968 accidental release of nerve gas from Dugway

that killed some 6,000 sheepin the area.

Finally, public information about what was happening at Dugway suffered a

serious setback in September 1993, when the biowarfare oversight committee

that advises the governor of Utah on biological defense testing matters at

Dugway voted to make itself off-limits to the public. Reasoning that they

could obtan more information from the Army if confidentiality could be

assured, the oversight group also voted to disengage from its parent

organization, the State Advocacy Council on Science and Technology. The

committee had been frustrated by its inability to get timely information

from Dugway.

Critics doubt the committee will have access to any more information than

it has received in the past and that the net result only further distances